


twig.

by cupofinsomnia



Category: A Heist With Markiplier, markiplier - Fandom
Genre: (Eric's dad is an asshole basically), AU in which Eric is in prison and Yancy must PROTECC, Ableist Language, Found Family, Gen, Gen Work, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Language, Verbal Abuse, Yelling, don't tell me he wouldn't immediately adopt the boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-25 04:00:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21349891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupofinsomnia/pseuds/cupofinsomnia
Summary: Eric never seemed okay after his father visited. He also never wanted to talk about it. Yancy decides to find out why.
Relationships: Yancy / Eric Derekson
Comments: 12
Kudos: 110





	twig.

**Author's Note:**

> AU in which Eric Derekson is at Happy Trails, probably due to some terrible shit his dad had him framed him for (*coughs* basically my brain needed an excuse to put Yancy and Eric in the same setting so they can be SIBLINGS and also SOFT)
> 
> it's implied Yancy had abusive parents in this one
> 
> check the tags for further warnings

* * * * *

Third Sunday. Visitation Day. Most of the inmates had somebody to see. Some of them didn’t.

Technically, Yancy didn’t need to be at a booth. He knew nobody was coming for him. And Gerald, the notoriously sympathetic prison guard, knew that _technically_ the inmates weren’t allowed at a booth unless somebody was already there to talk to them. But Yancy had insisted that he thought someone might come today, _I haven’t seen my aunt in ages, and youse can never be too sure_, and Gerald knew in his heart that Yancy’s aunt wouldn’t come, and that just crushed his little heart even more. How could he say no?

So Yancy sat in his booth, staring at the glass pane in front of him. The phone to his right hung on the wall, untouched. Gerald was too easy to exploit. He didn’t even _have_ an aunt.

Ignoring the odd feeling in his chest at the collective hum of his friends laughing into their phones, flirting with their partners, and the occasional “I love you too”s, Yancy sat and tried to listen to the conversation happening five feet to his left. 

“—didn’t mean it, I-I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m really—please—please let me talk. I—“

Eric’s thin voice quavered through the air, sounding as if it couldn’t quite get enough buoyancy to carry itself all the way to Yancy’s ears. He furrowed his brow. 

Eric had only had a visitor twice since he’d arrived, but both those times, Yancy recalled, he’d gotten oddly quiet. After his first visit, he hadn’t wanted to look anyone in the eye. The second time, Yancy had casually asked who was visiting him and the kid nearly jumped out of his skin. He’d stammered out something about how happy he was to see his dad and gave a halting laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. Then he didn’t talk for three days. Yancy had filed that away in the ever-growing list of Things He Weren’t Too Sure He Liked About the Old Man. Now, he took note of the anxious voice in the adjacent booth.

“I know, dad. I _know._ Please— I know it was my f—” Eric kept halting, interrupted frequently by a crackly burst of static that rose and fell in pitch like a jagged line. His dad was yelling something, but Yancy couldn’t tell what. Furtively glancing around to make sure no eyes were on him, he carefully scooted his chair a few inches to the left.

Eric’s sentences were incomplete and nearly incoherent, full of pleas and apologies. He seemed to be growing increasingly more breathless. Yancy could hear the wince in his voice every time that sharp burst came through the phone. He could just barely make out the words “disgrace” and “pathetic”. His fists clenched. He quietly moved another half foot, and the crackle took shape:

“—day goes by where I don’t wonder where the _hell_ I went wrong with you … never did a goddamn useful thing for me or ma … brothers would be ashamed to look at you and your … waste of time and energy, you ungrateful tard, no _you_ let _me_ talk … never listened to me, never could just fucking _listen_ … your own fuckin’ fault you’re here, you piece of—”

Eric’s halted breaths started to sound more like sobs, and Yancy decided he had heard just about enough. He shot up from his chair and started to move toward Eric when Gerald stepped in front of him.

“Hey, where do you think you’re goin’? I don’t mean to be too stern, but visitations are one-on-one, personal business.”

Yancy’s jaw twitched. “Don’tcha hear what’s happenin’? Look at Twig. Look at ‘im! He’s shakin’ like a… twig!” He pointed at Eric, whose reedy body was quaking with either fear or repressed sobs. It was hard to tell, but it didn’t matter. Yancy could see the man on the other side now, his face red and his mustached lip curled into a snarl.

“I’m sorry, but you can’t just interrupt people’s precious time with their loved ones,” Gerald protested, putting an arm out. “That’s just not in our rules and it’s very rude, besides.”

“_Listen_ to what’s happenin’! Does he look like he’s enjoyin’ his ‘precious time’ with that asshole? Huh!?”

“It’s not anybody’s business what people talk about in their private conversations—“

“It’s _my_ business, and that bastard ain’t makin’ nothing private. Twig. Twig! Four-Eyes!” Yancy shouted, trying to get Eric’s attention. The teen seemed paralyzed, transfixed on his dad’s furious face, his lips quivering but releasing no sound.

“Hey now, keep your voice—_hey—_”

“Eric!”

Eric flinched and his head snapped to Yancy. “I—I, um,” he began to stammer, his eyes flitting back and forth between his tattooed friend and his father.

“Yancy, you need to step back now,” Gerald said, getting visibly frustrated.

“Eric, hang up that phone,” said Yancy. “Hang up.”

“B-but, I—we’re—I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“Yancy, step _back._”

“What’s he gonna do ta you? He can’t do nothin’. You hang up that phone.”

“I…”

“_Yancy._”

Mr. Derekson pounded his side of the glass with his fist and Eric jumped and whimpered. “_Listen_ to me when I’m talking to you, you little…”

Yancy felt a hand applying force to his chest and he slapped it away, marching forward. He snatched the phone from Eric’s white-knuckled grip and pressed it to his mouth, locking eyes with _that bastard._ “I’m the warden,” he growled through gritted teeth. “And your time is up.”

“Wh— you can’t do that, _I’m talking to my son—_”

Yancy slammed the phone into the receiver, still staring Eric’s father dead in the eye. His arm had protectively wrapped around Eric’s shoulder, and he gently squeezed it. “C’mon, Twig. C’mon.”

Derek Derekson’s mouth worked uselessly for a few moments, and his tomato face turned even redder. Suddenly he began shouting expletives so loud, Yancy could hear him through the glass and he was certain the rest of the prisoners could too. He felt Eric trembling under his hand. “Hey. Let’s go. I know you got workin’ legs. Let’s go.”

Eric tried to breathe, and got out of his chair. The two of them made to leave when they were halted by a distinctly not-Gerald prison guard with a stern expression.

“You, sir, have violated Happy Trails’ visitation policy,” she said, pointing a finger in Yancy’s face, “_and_ you hurt Gerald’s feelings. You are receiving an official reprimand—”

“Hey, _hey!_” Yancy got in the guard’s face and pointed right back at her. “I violated _nothin’_, and youse ain’t givin’ me _no_ reprimands, y’hear?”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Yancy yelled. “The only one violatin’ anything here is that fuckface violatin’ Twig’s sanity, and if any of youse had half a brain, that bastard would be in here and _my lil’ bro_ would be out in the world livin’ a normal and happy life! You hear me? _Fuck_ your reprimands. Let’s go, Twig.” He shouldered roughly past the guards, Eric in tow, ignoring the startled and curious heads that had turned in their direction.

No words were exchanged on their way to the exercise yard. Yancy only heard Eric’s laboured breathing and thought of every way he could string Derek up from the rafters of a twenty-story apartment.

The yard was mostly empty, save for two men speaking in hushed tones off to the side, and a few security guards dotting the perimeter. Many of the inmates were still having their visits, and those who weren’t opted to sleep in their cells. Yancy found a bench and sat Eric down. He saw tear tracks on the kid’s face and thought of Jimmy punching Derek through a brick wall. He kept his arm around his shoulder.

They sat for an unspecified time while Eric breathed, and breathed. Yancy knew better than to keep track, or to try to force him to talk before he was ready.

Sobs turned to gasps, and gasps to pants. Eventually, Eric let out a long, slow exhale. A deep breath, and another. He still trembled slightly, like a blade of grass just brushed by a breeze.

“I’m—I’m sorry,” Eric said finally. “Sorry I didn’t hang up.”

“Youse got nothin’ to be sorry about.” Yancy kept his voice soft. “I got a bit riled up in there, but it wasn’t ‘cause o’ you.” He turned to look at Eric’s face. “How you doin’?”

Eric was silent for a few beats, his eyes fixed on nothing in the distance. “I don’t know.”

“Hey. I told you I wouldn’t let nobody hurt you as long as you’re here. Remember that?”

A few more beats. “Yeah.”

“That includes your asshole dad. He don’t have to be in here to hurt you, and I don’t have to be out there to stop him from hurtin’ you. And… you don’t have to be out there either.”

“H-huh?”

“To stop him, I mean. You can hang up.”

Eric opened his mouth to protest and Yancy squeezed his shoulder.

“Yes, you can. That ain’t against no rules. You can always hang up. An’ if you can’t, just gimme a shout. I’ll hang up for you.”

Eric took another deep breath. “Thank you.”

“Don’ mention it.”

They sat in silence. Yancy removed his arm and clasped his hands in front of him, absentmindedly tracing his tattoos and staring at the fence on the far end of the yard. He tried and failed not to think of what he’d heard Derek say, and the desperate way Eric fumbled to find words in the face of his rage. _Pathetic. Waste of time and energy. Your own fuckin’ fault._ Where had he heard _those_ words before? he thought bitterly. He knew that rage. He knew that fear. He knew the way those words wormed their way into the deepest, most animal parts of the brain and coiled tightly around the ribs, the way they could poison a person from the inside out. He swallowed and calmed himself by thinking of Derek getting run over by a Jeep, repeatedly. The Jeep, in his mind’s eye, just happened to be situated around himself.

“Hey, uh…” Yancy ventured after a few moments. “Your dad. He always talk to you like that?”

Eric stared at his own hands. “Not—not all the time, but. Sometimes. A lot. Yeah.”

Yancy nodded and ran a tongue along his teeth.

“B-but,” Eric scrambled, “he’s not—we’re both.” A breath. “He lost everything too. Not just me. And I’m—I’m—he’s not in jail. I’m here. And he’s not. And everything’s really, really hard. B-because of me.”

“Hey, now. Hey.” Yancy didn’t think anything was Eric’s fault for a damn second, and he blinked and saw his hands around that fat, veiny neck, squeezing—he blinked again, forcing himself to speak through the ringing in his ears. “You know what I think about all that.” 

He didn’t, actually. Yancy had puzzled some pieces together and figured the kid’s narcissistic dad was to blame for most of what had happened to his family, but he’d refrained from shoving Eric into that reality. The first step was just trying to get him to see that he wasn’t as terrible and worthless as his dad had convinced him he was. He knew it would take more than his own opinion to change his mind, but hell. He had to do _something._

Eric cleared his throat. “Hey, um… when… you were yelling at security,” he ventured. “Did—I thought—it sounded like you said… brother...” He faltered.

Fuck. Yancy felt himself tense. He _had_ said that, hadn’t he?

“L-little brother,” Eric supplied.

“You, ah… you misheard.”

“Oh.”

_Fuck._ He scrambled to correct himself. “It was _lil bro,_ if we’re gettin’ technical.” He turned to look at Eric, thin as a reed—twig. _His_ Twig, who was currently blinking back tears. Yancy felt his brain fumble. He was supposed to make him feel at home, like family, and he was screwing it up. _Your fault._ _Pathetic._

“I miss my brothers so much,” Eric whispered, and Yancy’s brain shut up for a moment. Eric removed his glasses and pressed his fingers into his eyes. “I’ve never missed anyone so badly in my life.”

Yancy swallowed a lump that had formed in his throat without permission. He watched Eric run a hand down his face and put his glasses back on.

“But—Merrick was the nicest,” he continued. “I remember once… Sterick and Therick had put firecrackers in a dead mouse and set it off just to scare me. I got yelled at for it, cause they—they ran off, and there were bloodstains on my clean overalls, and… Merrick helped me clean up the mess. He never blamed me for anything, or blew up any rodents. He just helped me clean up. He washed my clothes for me. He swept up the barn. He did things like that a… a lot.”

Eric looked at Yancy for the first time since they’d come outside. “You—you’re a lot like Merrick. I think you’d like him lots.”

Yancy rubbed his neck and looked away, choosing to stare intently at a blade of grass. “Ah, I don’t… I don’t think I can match up to any o’ your brothers. Well. Some of ‘em, maybe. But,” he chuckled, “I’m just a regular scumbag lookin’ out for a lil’ twig who’d snap in two if someone weren’t watchin’ him.”

A silence.

Then a soft, “Thank you, Yance.”

“Anytime, Twig.”

And he meant it.


End file.
